Ways and Means
by elaiel
Summary: It's hard to cut all ties when the people you're hiding from have the resources of the Avengers... (AU-canon divergence fic)


This is the beginning of a partially written longer story that I likely won't finish, but I liked the beginning and it stands well enough on its own.

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><p>"You know where Coulson is." Fury's voice was hard.<p>

"No, actually sir, I don't." Clint ground out. "As it turns out he's not where I expected him to be"

"And where was that?"

"Six feet under."

There was a pause.

"Tony and Jarvis were very motivated." Clint continued. "And whilst most of the files show Phil as being dead, there are some serious gaps in the recording, a room in medical that was mysteriously unused for three months, gaps in the stock control for medical and then a medical transfer vehicle that made an unscheduled arrival on deck but apparently then just disappeared."

Fury looked tired for a moment, scratched under the edge of his patch then looked up with a glare.

"Coulson asked to disappear. He has resigned."

"Resigned?" Clint was stunned.

"Coulson made it very clear that as he was unable to carry out the duties for which he was hired and he wanted to leave with no fanfare and make a new life."

Fury was hard to read at the best of times, but Clint had the distinct impression that Fury and Coulson had disagreed on this point.

"Why?" Clint demanded. "Why can't he do his job anymore?"

"His injury led to some impairment that appeared permanent."

"Where is he?" Clint demanded. "Tell me where he is."

"Barton," Fury leaned forward on his desk slightly, "Coulson…Phil, _asked _me, no, he **demanded **I let him go like this. He has a new name and a new life. **That's** what he demanded of me."

"I don't believe you."

Fury sighed, fingers rubbing under the edge of his patch. He turned to a cabinet built into the wall, thumbed a fingerprint ID patch and waited as a drawer slid out. He pulled out a paper file, flipped it open and pulled out a single sheet, sliding it across the table towards Clint.

Clint took a step forward to look down at the sheet. It was handwritten on a sheet of paper, Clint could the the faint outline of the SHIELD logo watermark floating behind the oh-so-familiar handwriting, just four lines of beautifully neat handwriting.

"_...I would just like to include how much I have valued your support over my time here, but now is time to go..."_

"He really went."

"He really went." Fury's echo was uncharacteristically soft.

Clint stared at the paper for a while more before handing it back to Fury.

"Will you tell me where he is?"

"He asked me not to tell anyone."

Clint swallowed. "You know we'll find him."

Fury nodded. "But I won't have broken his trust."

xxxoooxxx

Clint stood on the doorstep for almost five minutes before he could bring himself to knock on the door. In the end, it was only the twitching of a curtain at a house across the road that forced him to make a decision. He knocked, waited and after a long moment, the door was open.

The man in the wheelchair rolled it forward. "Clint." He said.

Clint stared. "Coulson?"

"Not anymore."

"Phil?"

There was a pause, then a nod.

Clint took him in top to toe, the hooded sweat shirt, jeans and sneakers resting on the footplates of the sporty looking wheelchair. He had lost weight and he hadn't been carrying any extra in the first place.

"You'd better come in." Phil wheeled the chair back through the front door, letting Clint walk up the ramp into the house.

It was wide and airy inside, the main part of the house open plan throughout, kitchen into dining area into living room into what was obviously an office area. A door led off by the large desk evidently to bedrooms and bathroom. A walking frame sat against one of the kitchen counters, it's metal frame powder coated in deep green enamel to match the forest and earth tones the whole area was decorated in.

Phil pushed the door shut behind Clint and Clint turned.

"Can you…?"

"What?" Phil's voice was tired, and his tone was odd to Clint's ears, not even, not equable, not...Phil.

Clint gestured at the walking frame. "Walk?"

"I can weight bear for limited periods at the moment." Phil said flatly. "Take two or three steps. Means I can cook dinner, transfer myself from chair to the toilet, and that with my shower stool I don't need someone here to help me wash my ass."

Clint flushed in embarrassment.

"What do you want Clint?"

"I…"

"I can't work for SHIELD anymore. I'm not physically capable of my old job."

"What are you doing now?" Clint asked, avoiding Phil's earlier question.

"Retraining."

"In what."

"Psychology, with a focus on trauma."

"Will you come back to SHIELD when you're qualified?"

"No." Phil said flatly. "What part of _'I am not able to work for SHIELD anymore' _appears to have passed you by?"

Clint was shocked by the angry tone in his voice. "Look Phil. I came 'cause…I wanted to see _you_. It's not about what you can do for me, I just wanted to see you were okay. I mean I thought you were _dead_."

"As far as SHIELD personnel are concerned I _am_ dead." Phil cut in.

"Yeah, well most SHIELD personnel aren't us." Clint countered. "I missed you. Yeah, I missed you at work, but I miss you when we're not on missions too. Just hanging out in your office...you know..."

Coulson sighed. "You want a coffee?" He asked. "You've had a long trip."

Clint nodded. He considered offering to help, but guessed it might be rude and imply Coulson couldn't do it. That was not likely to be received well.

He watched as Coulson wheeled into the kitchen area, locked his wheels and pulled himself up on the frame. With a quick movement he lifted it, putting it down next to the coffee machine which sat by the sink. His upper body seemed to be moving fine, but Clint could see Coulson had locked his knees when standing, he maintained his hold on the frame throughout and his movement to the fridge and back for the milk was halting. The filled mugs and what appeared to be a cookie jar were put on a padded lap tray which Coulson took down onto his lap after sitting back in the chair. He turned the chair towards the lounge.

"Come on." He said.

Clint followed.

"At least say you'll come and visit. As much secrecy and privacy as you want. I promise. We don't have a handler on site anymore, Stark won't let them and I can get him to make a few adjustments to your old guest room so it's convenient if you stop over." Clint sighed. "I'm not the only one who misses you."

"They all know I'm alive then?" Phil said, wheeling up to the coffee table and transferring the tray across.

"Just us." Clint replied, watching Phil put the brakes on his wheels. "The...uh...Avengers..."

"I expected that you'd find out eventually. Stark can't keep his curiosity in check. How come it's only you here? Impulse control has never been high on Stark or Thor's list of qualities at least and I'm almost insulted 'Tasha isn't here."

"Fury told me you'd asked to disappear. We agreed sending more than one person to see you would be pressuring you too much." Clint admitted. "'Tasha threatened the others with retribution if it wasn't me." He ducked his head, flushing a little. "I didn't handle you….dying…well." He stopped for a moment. "Not that you're responsible for that." He added hurriedly. "Or actually dead."

"I am." Coulson said. "Responsible I mean. Somewhat."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"How bad is it, sir?" Clint had to ask.

"I have damage to my spinal cord around my lumbar vertebrae." Phil said. "When someone jams a magically powered sceptre into your lower back near your spine and up through your chest, it unsurprisingly tends to cause a few problems. I have partial lower limb paralysis. I'm also missing chunks of my left lung, and had to have some major surgery around my heart and to repair parts of my intestines. If the sceptre hadn't been curved I would have been stabbed through the heart. As it is I was apparently 6 millimetres from certain death."

He looked up at Clint.

"Had I not been on the carrier, and that close to that good an emergency medical facility I _would _be dead regardless. The surgeon started work on me in situ to stabilise me. I would never have survived transportation to a medical facility otherwise."

"So it's a straight up spinal cord injury?" Clint said. Phil wouldn't be the first agent to be treated for or retired due to one.

"No." Phil said. "It's not, there was some damage to the spinal cord from the initial injury, but there was damage from the energy contained in the staff as well. The prognosis of that was much less clear. There are still residual readings coming up from that which means that they won't risk a lot of the treatments SHIELD could have tried otherwise. I'm recovering like any other injured vet who was impaled and sustained a traumatic spinal injury. I'm lucky, I've retained a lot of mobility and sensation."

Clint couldn't quite get his head round the fact that _this_ was retaining a lot of mobility and sensation. "So what can you and can't you do?"

"You want the full list?" Phil asked.

"Uh, yeah, go for it."

"I have limited mobility in both legs, hips, knees and feet, my left leg is worse than my right. I have reduced sensation in both legs. I get spasticity and muscle spasms. I have neuropathic pain issues. I have bladder and bowel management issues. I'm missing half my left lung which means I am more likely to get breathless than other people. I was late learning to use a wheelchair and frame as the doctors restricted my upper body movement due to the thoracic damage and I'm only two months into being allowed to manage on my own most of the time without 24/7 care. I have reactive depression. I take six different medications a day at the moment, and two of those are so I can actually take a crap on my own."

Clint cringed.

"You don't want to know what else that involves." Phil said harshly.

He appeared to realise how aggressive he was sounding, as he sighed and sat back in the chair.

"Does it mean you have to leave your team behind?" Clint asked quietly. "Your friends?"

"Look Barton, this is long term. I'm partially paralysed. The adaptations and mobility issues aren't just that I can't walk about, it's about needing _facilities _on a day to day, hour to hour basis because the world isn't set up for people who can't walk or stand unaided. It's about the amitriptyline I take for the pain management flattening me at night, I'm not waking up for four hours minimum after I've taken it. It's about the fact it takes me up to an hour to take a crap every morning and that's with the meds, the right diet and some...uh...physical effort." He picked up a cookie. "I'm not just going to be nipping up to the city for a visit."

"Why not?" Clint asked. "It's not like Stark doesn't have the money to put in any facilities you could ever need or want."

"Because I can't be what I used to be, I don't want sympathy and I wanted space to start a new life." Phil said. He picked up his cup and took a sip. "Here, I'm just another injured veteran, which I think is a fair enough assessment. I've just got a better severance package than most."

They looked at each other over the coffee.

"Would you come and see us at least once?" Clint asked. "Just once. Let us all say goodbye properly before we let you go." He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, not wanting to guilt trip Phil into anything. He knew he was failing, with Phil at least, who knew him inside and out and had years of listening out for any strain in his voice.

Phil sighed. "Fine. Once." He leaned back in his chair. "You can stay in the guest room tonight."

" Are you sure I wouldn't be imposing?"

"I'll admit I've been wondering how you were." Phil said. " You want pizza?"

"You know me so well, sir."

"Phil. Just Phil."


End file.
